Lollipops that play in your mouth, mind-reading headphones or a dumb AI bartender: the weirdest "hits" from CES 2026
Innovation: practicality vs. absurdity
Technological progress is undoubtedly great, in many ways it makes our lives easier. But as the field of innovation is also one of almost limitless possibilities, it's not surprising that this year's CES 2026 - alongside the truly serious innovations - also featured inventions that the average consumer is more likely to shake their heads at.
Music in your mouth, headphones that "train your brain" and ones that turn into a speaker
One example: the Lollipop Star, which combines a sweet treat with music. However, the user (understand, the one who licks the lollipop) does not listen to the music with his ears, but with his "mouth". As soon as the lollipop touches the teeth, it starts to vibrate gently and these tiny vibrations go straight through the jaw to the inner ear. The brain deals with them in its own way and evaluates them as music. The sound travels directly to the inner ear through the bones. For a price of around nine dollars, you can buy a specific song as a one-time "musical candy".
The effort to technologically "look inside the head" of the user went even further. A company called Neurable has introduced headphones that monitor brain activity and try to assess how fast a person is thinking and how focused they are. Primarily aimed at the gaming community, gamers can see in real time if they are in shape or if their brain is just "not keeping up". In testing, it has been shown that after using this technology, users feel like the world around them slows down slightly, while their own reactions are faster. Even though the headset doesn't realistically change anything, the player gets the feeling that they have more time to think about their actions, in which they subsequently make fewer mistakes. Is this gaming "doping"? Mental training? Or is it that the manufacturer is tuning players' brains towards higher performance?
The Tomorrow Doesn't Matter (TDM) brand also took aim at the headset, introducing a model that can be turned into a speaker by physically twisting it. With a single movement, private listening becomes public production. Practical? Maybe. Unusual? Absolutely. And a little old-fashioned compared to the previous invention.
(Un)useful helpers not only for the kitchen
If the list so far seems a little bizarre, we have a toy from the "vibrating" category. But forget about the bedroom. Seattle Ultrasonics has introduced a vibrating chef's knife. Special crystals vibrate the blade more than 30,000 times per second, which sounds scary, but there's no need to worry about turning into a variation of Edward Scissorhands. You can't see or feel the vibrations, they're just meant to reduce the effort of slicing by up to half. In the demonstrations, the knife easily sliced almost "transparent" tomato slices with just a light touch. Isn't that great?
Breakreal's R1 AI bartender, on the other hand , promises to mix cocktails based on the user's mood, taste and current state of mind. Or, to be precise, based on what you reveal in the mobile app. In theory, the algorithm should take into account your tastes, the alcohol you like, and then your mood - i.e. whether you're celebrating something or, conversely, drinking away your sorrows. And the bartender should mix the ideal cocktail accordingly.
But the practice is a bit different: this smart robot is actually not that smart, because you have to add the required ingredients beforehand (no, the gin doesn't actually materialise itself based on the algorithm). And there can be a maximum of eight of them. From these ingredients, the "bartender" then mixes the cocktails. In short, by what you fill the tanks with, you clearly predetermine what is subsequently mixed. The "robotic bartender" then just selects the proportions appropriately. With prices starting at over a thousand dollars, it might be better to throw a party where a flesh-and-blood bartender arrives. And with a proper set-up of more than eight ingredients...
Up into the realm of the bizarre
And while a headset and speaker in one, or a vibrating knife, may at least look like real-life innovations, many of the other innovations on show at CES 2026 can be categorised as pure bizarro.
For example, the Y-Brush electric toothbrush, which more closely resembles a sports mouthguard than anything else (and given its size, it actually covers all of your teeth completely), allows you to clean your entire dentition at once in a matter of seconds. LED skincare masks were also on display at the fair - they are designed to promote collagen production and skin regeneration through red and infrared light. The problem is that they attracted attention not so much for their effects as for the fact that, when put on and switched on, they make the wearer look like a character cut out of a B-movie horror film.
Visitors to the fair were also very "intrigued" by a device that sends electrical impulses to male private parts. Again, however, not so much the purpose - i.e. stimulation of the muscles in the pelvic floor area, which is supposed to help control ejaculation, among other things - but rather the placement and control of the electrodes, which users manage through a mobile app. Exactly how our lives can be improved by pet robots, which continuously "stalk" pets and create moving videos of their activities on a daily basis, is up to you...
